


Square

by Caixx



Category: Original Work
Genre: Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Dark Comedy, Gay, High School, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Abuse, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Male Slash, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Slash, Slice of Life, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-09 20:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19483411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caixx/pseuds/Caixx
Summary: There was always something uneasy between Zach and Ben from the day they met. Zach wasn't sure what this strange thing was. And Ben didn't know how to tell him.





	1. Bathroom Tiles

The school called it assault.

Zach supposed they were right. He had to ride in an ambulance with his busted nose, and a yellow shirt slowly turning orange. But the thing that hurt the most was his pride. It was Ben standing over him, fists still clenched, lips drawn into a line, and chest heaving, clearly the victor, while Zach lay there, in the puddle, on the cold, dirty tiles of the boys' washroom as the water from the broken tap sprayed.

The water came down like rain, stinging his eyes, and he used that as an excuse to keep them firmly shut as he was rolled into a stretcher and wheeled through the hallways. He still felt the gazes, the burning of the eye-whites, following him out the door. He could imagine them craning their necks.

"Guess who finally snapped..."

"Oh, shit."

"Jesus, I hope his face'll be okay."

Later in the hospital, when Zach sat, dripping blood onto his knees and waiting for his parents to commute up from work, he thought about Ben wrestling him down, and the thing that poked him in the hip in the meantime. They had both paused for a beat, and Zach had glanced down, then up again, watching those blown black pupils dart between his own as the panic settled in.

Zach leaned in his seat, as much as he could with both hands holding his bloodied nose, and wiggled his elbow against his hip in the same place.

The thing of Ben's wasn't a misplaced limb. Zach didn't really want to think about what that meant.

He stayed home the next two weeks to give the bruises time to fade. There was still a greenish tinge above his cheeks when he headed back into homeroom. He wanted to wait out the talk too. He didn't want to answer any questions. No, he didn't want to give a play-by-play. No, he didn't remember who started it. And it's nobody's business why he didn't press charges. He also knew he couldn't stay home too long or people would start to whisper different things. There was a very delicate balancing act. Zach was usually good at those.

He thought Tuesday was a good day to go back.

He didn't know that was the same day Ben's suspension ended. Somebody should've told him.

First thing Zach saw in homeroom was Ben in the very back of the class, all rounded shoulders and long neck, hunched over the little plastic folding table. Ben's wearing that rust coloured crewneck again. The one Zach had laughed at two weeks ago.

Zach didn't like what he said, and he was never going to repeat it. He only said it because the other guys all said their bits, and they looked at him like he was next, waiting. He saw that Ben's ears were red, and had gone very still all of a sudden. He hesitated for half a second. There were a lot of eyes on him, and a lot of anticipation. He was supposed to be the funny one. They were the openers and he was supposed to clinch it.

So he said what he said.

He wasn't all that surprised when Ben's fist came flying.

He was surprised that they were directed at him.

Zach put his bag down by a desk near the homeroom door, but Emma fell into the seat backwards, laughing at something Kayla said. Then they both turned and saw him. Their eyes went wide and then flickered to the back of the class. Oh, they said. Oh.

Zach picked up his bag and moved over a row. Not quite the farthest away as he could get, but close enough. Kayla kept looking at him, and waggling her eyebrows at Emma. They might've thought he was scared. It's fine. Let them.

Ben probably thought that too.

Zach took a second to wonder if he cared.

Ben has had lots of reasons to break Zach's nose. They came close a few times in the last four years.

Ben was an easy target. Zach was new. Zach wanted to fit in. Zach became the class clown. Zach was told he had nice hair. He had nice teeth. Zach was applauded when he said he was gay. Zach was one of them. Zach was okay. 

Everybody was already talking about Ben behind their hands. Zach didn't know any better so he talked about him aloud. Ben walked weird, talked weird, looked weird. He was too lanky, with hands like cartoon gloves, and hair that always looked like it was cut with a lawnmower. Even when he grew into his frame and his hands and buzzed all his hair off, he still always had dirt on his jeans, holes in his sneakers, and that stupid rust coloured crewneck.

If Zach hadn't transferred here, the other kids might've found Ben intimidating. But Zach turned his bulk into a running joke and made his scowls seem dopey.

One time, Ben had gotten into it with Emma, right on the landing of the main staircase near the music hall. She had said he smelled. He shoved her in the back as she tried to walk away, once, twice, and if there had been another, she would've rolled down the stairs. Zach had interrupted by leaning casually over the barrier and asked Ben if he was confused. "Here," Zach motioned to his chest, "this is where you put your hands if you wanna cop a feel." There was nervous giggling and Ben's ears turned pink. Emma called Ben a pervert and people started laughing for real. Ben didn't shove any more girls after that, no matter what they said to him.

At the start of grade thirteen, their homeroom teacher assigned seats by last names. Zach and Ben were sat next to each other, in the back of the class, where there wasn't enough leg space, so they kept bumping knees and sometimes thighs. In September, Ben would jump every time it happened, which Zach observed, but didn't think anything of.

That was about the same time Zach noticed the bruises on Ben's arms.

They came and went, peering out from where Ben folds up his sleeves.

There was a cut once, red and angry and Zach could feel the heat pulsing from it, keeping time with Ben's little grimaces.

None of his group of guys were in this class, so Zach had no reason to talk to Ben any more, or talk about him, or even talk in his general direction. By early November, Ben had uncoiled himself a little, and stopped jumping. Even when their shoulders touched sometimes as they struggled with their little plastic folding tables, Ben wouldn't flinch away.

Zach stopped talking to Ben even when the guys were around, or talking about him, or talking in his general direction. The guys tried to set Zach up sometimes, gingerly, almost caringly, as if they thought he forgot what his job was. Zach disappointed them time and time again.

About of month of that culminated in an ambush in the second-floor boys' washroom.

The first snow had come and went, followed by the second. The skatepark was closed. The slush kept getting into their boots. The sky was dark by the time school let out, and sometimes the power went out throughout the whole town. There were a lot of things that all came into play at the same time. Zach didn't blame the guys. It wasn't their fault.

And it definitely wasn't Ben's.

Zach had even floated the idea that Ben shouldn't be suspended. Zach's dad told him to lie back down. The adults were talking, mostly over each other.

"We're doing an investigation-"

"-heard there was a video."

"Somebody used the f-word-"

"-unclear on some of the details-"

"-as in fag."

"That makes it a hate crime," Zach's dad said.

There was a moment of quiet as everybody thought about that.

Zach chose this time to confess that he had goaded Ben into doing it. "Nobody called nobody a fag," he lied.

Zach's mom got a little teary-eyed, the principal thanked Zach for his honesty and then announced that the cops had gone to the school and taken Ben into custody. Did they want to press charges?

No. NO. Zach had yelled over his parents. He yelled himself hoarse.

The homeroom teacher took one look at Zach sitting in the wrong seat and told him to move. Zach gave her a look, like you can't be serious. She was always serious.

Everybody in the class watched Zach weave his way through the rows, all the way to the back. It seemed like they were all holding their breaths. Zach sat down gingerly and kept his eyes looking off to the side, so that he wouldn't catch his neighbour in even his periphery.

Ben didn't seem to have the same problem. His gaze weighed heavy on Zach. Zach could almost feel it move, from the side of his face down to his collar and up again.

Zach's hand shot into the air the very second that the attendance was taken.

"Washroom?"

"No," the homeroom teacher said.

"Please."

"No."

"I'm gonna shit myself."

She sighed. Everybody else laughed. "Go."

Zach felt his pant-leg brushing Ben's jeans as he leapt up.

Kayla caught his eye as he passed. "See ya next period," he said lowly.

"Don't break anything." She tapped her nose mockingly.

"Bring my bag." He mouthed.

Zach figured he should go to the washroom, so he wouldn't be called a liar. He went down to the one on the first floor.

He wished the bruises were more purple than green, then he'd look badass instead of sickly.

His phone vibrated in his back pocket.

Zach checked his hair in the mirrors, then backed all the way up against the stall doors to check his outfit. His scarf left little white furs all over his sweater. Somebody should've told him.

His phone vibrated again.

He pulled it out impatiently.

It was Kayla:   
_He's coming_.

Zach felt his neck hairs stand upon ends.

The bathroom door opened.

Zach only caught a flash of rust before turning into the stall and latched it behind him. He heard a metallic clank, looked through the gap, and saw the bathroom door's deadlock was turned sideways.

"Shit," he said aloud.

It echoed a bit.

"What d'you want?" he asked.

Nothing but echoes.

He peered through the gap again and saw rolled up sleeves and bruised arms crossed over a concave chest.

"Sorry," Ben said eventually. His voice rumbled.

"For what?"

Ben shrugged.

Zach let out a huff of air and opened the stall door slowly. Ben pushed away from the sink he was leaning against and came forward.

"Whoa," Zach stuck out his hand. "Don't come in here. That's weird."

Ben's ears were scarlet. "Sorry," he said again.

Zach watched him watching the floor for a minute. "I'm sorry."

Ben's looked up, surprised.

"I shouldn't have said the thing about your shirt." Zach hesitated. Ben waited. He had dark eyes and straight brows that creased neatly when he frowned. Zach took a breath. "Was just, uh, just making shit up, y'know."

"Well, you're right." Ben looked down when he talked, then glanced up furtively, as if to check how his words went over.

Zach had his arms crossed too now. "Oh."

"I mean about my dad," Ben continued haltingly. He shuffled his arms.

Zach saw that there was a new patch of faded yellow, poking out of the left sleeve. He didn't know how to respond to this bit of information, and would rather not know it at all.

"Sorry," Zach said finally. Lamely.

The corner of Ben's lips twitched upwards. He tried to cover it by pretending to have a coughing fit into his hand.

Zach snorted. "So we're square?"

Ben nodded. He was looking down again. Zach noticed he was hiding his holey-er shoe behind the other. 

"Um..." Ben cleared his throat and tried again. "Do you, uhm-"

The bathroom door shook from its knob to its hinges like someone ran into it. Or multiple people actually, judging by the shouting outside.

Ben startled and moved next to Zach. Their knuckles touched. That seemed to startle Ben even more.

"We should probably open that door," Zach said calmly.

Ben was distracted, staring down at their knuckles, which were still touching.

Zach reached up with his other hand to wave in Ben's face, like hello, anybody in there? Which was a normal enough thing to do in a situation like this.

But not to Ben. 

He flipped the fuck out. Zach got in hardly half a wave before finding himself flying backwards. There was a dull throbbing in the middle of his chest where Ben's forearm had hit him. His shoulder blades smacked into a sink and his shin caught the pipes underneath.

Down he went on the cold, dirty bathroom tiles as water sprayed, like rain.

The door gave in, and many people burst in all at once. Someone stepped on his hand, and someone else was shouting, "STOP! STOP!"

The principal was here. Zach recognized his tasseled loafers. They were high up in the air, as the man launched bodily onto Ben, who crumpled.


	2. South Field

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second square.

There was a chair between them.

Ben picked the one the corner, and Zach thought it might've been weird to sit right next to him, considering. Zach was still dripping wet, and self conscious of the way his pants stuck to his legs. Ben didn't look bothered. Stoic as fuck, this kid, considering.

They sat in silence for a bit.

"Crazy," Zach said to no one in particular, after a minute, when he couldn't take it anymore.

Ben's head swiveled slowly towards him.

"He, like, jumped on you," Zach felt like he had to clarify, raising his arms and imitating the principal. "You could call that assault." He laughed dryly.

Ben didn't seem to think it was funny. He didn't even blink.

"I told him I was fine. Nothing happened. He thought you were gonna kill me." Zach looked around the office. "You'd think if he was worried, he wouldn't leave us here. Alone. With the door closed."

Ben followed his gaze. "I wasn't."

Zach nodded, as if he knew what Ben was talking about.

"I wasn't gonna kill you," Ben said flatly.

"No– I know," Zach stuttered. He caught Ben staring at his legs. Probably at the way his wet pants hung from them. "I know."

Ben had dark eyes. Zach had thought that before. He kept coming back to them. He called them cow eyes before, called them dull, made fun of the way Ben blinked, slow and deliberate. He called them whatever he needed to make the guys laugh. They blinked at him now, slowly. Dark lashes fluttered with the little movement of the iris, down, down, and up again. Pupils blown. They were bigger than they were two weeks ago, when Zach saw them up close last. Black and round, trembling ever so slightly.

Zach could almost hear the whirring of his own eyes, like the lenses of a camera, zooming, zooming, clicking into focus. There was a droplet of water on Ben's chin that glittered. Zach wondered how big his own pupils were.

Zach caught himself leaning in his chair, and straightened. But he didn't look away. "Don't admit to the fag thing."

Ben was looking down at Zach's legs again.

"I told them nobody called me a fag."

"That wasn't directed at you," Ben said.

"Oh, okay."

"It was at me."

Zach had to hunch down to get on eye-level with Ben, who was folding into himself slowly. "You called yourself a fag?"

"No." Ben's eyebrows twitched, annoyed. "Your friend did. What's-his-name. Dillan."

Zach supposed it could've been Dillan. There was a lot of voices all at once. He just assumed it was Ben. It must've been Dillan. Dillann called everybody everything. "He's stupid," Zach said.

Ben was half as tall as he was just minutes ago. Zach had seen cats do this, squeezing themselves into plastic box, furry face smushed into a corner, defying your mockery. I can too fit. Zach had never seen a person do this, in a shoddy little chair, in the middle of a principal's office. The main difference is the confidence. Ben didn't have that smug cat look. His forehead was creased.

Zach reached out slowly, and patted the shoddy little chair's cracked plastic arm.

Ben watched his hand approach warily.

"There, there," Zach said before his brain could tell him to not.

The secretary bustled in, in the middle of the look Ben was giving Zach. It wasn't exactly a glare, but it was a loaded look. It meant something, Zach was sure, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. It sat in the space between them, and made the air a little heavy, a little hazy, a little too warm for comfort. It carried static in it, which sparked. It shot up Zach's spine, crackled through the cerebellum and straight in to the lizard part of the brain.

"Outside," the secretary said.

Zach stood awkwardly, with his hands folded in what he hoped was a casual way in front of his pants. Nobody needed to see what was going on there. Zach glanced over his shoulder at Ben, still folded small in the corner, and waited for him to stand up too.

"Just you." The secretary gave Zach a little push, with the very tips of her fingers.

The principal had his cell glued to his ear.

"Don't call my parents," Zach told him again. Third time's the charm, he thought hopefully.

He should've known better.

Zach's mom didn't appreciate being summoned twice now in two weeks, from downtown all the way back up, through a subway, a train, and a car. "So he's not hurt?" was the first thing she said.

"Why d'you sound disappointed?" Zach asked.

Zach's dad pushed past the principal and the secretary, and marched into the corner of the office and shouted, "STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY SON."

Zach leaned against the reception counter, with his hands still strategically placed, and keeping an eye out for the other parent that must have also been called.

He had seen Ben's dad many times. The resemblance seemed obvious to everyone else, but they all grew up here and Zach was new, so it took him some time to make the connection. Zach had met him for the first time a few times, introduced each time by someone different.

"That one, you stay away from."

"See that? He's got his nose in the bottle again."

"Oh, that's just Rob. Don't talk to Rob."

"Hey, Rob. Pull up your fucking pants."

Rob was even bigger than Ben, fatter and uglier too and balding, with beady little beetle eyes. Rob didn't know that he ever met Zach, because he was often not conscious when it happened and Zach was fine with that.

Zach walked past Ben's house some days, when taking the shortcut home from school, and Rob would be sprawled halfway down the porch steps, arms and legs flung in every way like he didn't have a care in the world, and his massive gut rumbling with snuffles and rumbles and snores.

Sometimes he shouted at no one. Sometimes he guffawed until he choked. Sometimes he had congealed sick down the front of his shirt. Sometimes he had his flaccid dick out and swinging around. And one time Zach saw him at a distance, laying next to the dumpster behind the strip mall liquor store, seemingly unconscious, but when Ben, who still had his backpack on, tried to turn him over into the safe position with the smooth motions of a practiced expert, Rob reached up one massive arm and bounced Ben's head off the pavement.

Zach turned and walked off before he saw any blood, but the _crack_ he couldn't unhear. It reverberated all the way through his bones. The next morning, the seat next to his in homeroom was empty.

He strained his eyes, staring so hard at the door. His bones seemed to wobble at the memory, the hollow echo of Ben's skull hitting the ground. The shouting in the office had subsided now, and there was still no Rob.

Thank God.

Zach's dad emerged from the office with his face tomato red, and veins popping in his neck. "Let's go."

"No," Zach said.

"Let's go. What's wrong with you?"

"Calculus test."

His dad stared at him. "You can make it up some other time."

"I studied."

Zach's mom was staring at him too. "You need to change."

"I got gym clothes in my locker."

"Zach-"

"No." Zach shrugged off his mom's hand. "I'll see you guys after school."

His dad was going to argue, but his mom grabbed his elbow and twisted. "He's fine." As she pulled him out the door, she added lowly. "He's embarrassed. It's fine. Just let him-"

The principal told him to go back to class. Zach jutted his chin toward the office. "And him?"

"Well..."

"I told you. He didn't do nothing."

The principal didn't look convinced. But when Zach walked out into the atrium, he heard Ben following.

Ben lumbered a few steps behind him, and maintained that distance all the way to the main staircase, and then right past it. Zach heard Ben stop, as if confused. He imagined Ben looking up the stairs, seeing the hallway that led to their homeroom, and then back at Zach who was headed into the music hall. He heard Ben follow, past the band room and into an empty hallway.

Zach looked back at Ben when he reached his locker. Ben stopped in the middle of the hall, still maintaining that distance. Zach ducked his head to focus on the combination.

"Calculus?" Ben said suddenly.

Zach shrugged off his sweater. "Yep." 

"You don't have calculus this semester."

"Nope." His answer was muffled by the t-shirt he pulled over his head, and he was glad, because it also hid his face, which was feeling a little warm in the cheeks. It's such a stupid little thing to be flattered by – somebody knowing his class schedule.

"Huh." Ben had taken a few careful steps forward, but stopped, when Zach started to pull off his pants. He saw Ben scanning the hallway, arms half raised, guarded, or alarmed. Zach grabbed his coat after putting his shorts on, and headed down the hall, eyeing the glowing red EXIT sign.

He heard Ben hesitate again and held up his scarf over his head, not breaking pace or looking back, just trusting his instincts. "Got you covered."

Little towns had old schools, built back when the province had more money to spend on glass and grounds. The south field went on and on forever. The track and soccer field were hidden beneath the snow. The hill beyond them was streaked with toboggan trails from the weekend. Evergreens stood at the top of them, demarcating the school's borders. Beyond them and down the other side were backyards and wire fences. Zach liked to lean on those.

There was one particular spot, worn down and bent into the perfect angle by many backs of many students who came and went before them. Zach leaned there, hands thrust deep into his coat pockets and shivering a little.

His thick woolly scarf was wrapped haphazardly over Ben's arms like dressing. It was a warm scarf, but Ben was shivering too. 

Zach watched him shake cigarettes out of a crumpled box he pulled out of his jeans. His fingers were long and knobby and tapered into flat tops, like squares. His thumbs were particularly knobby and square. Even they trembled, and the cigarette threatened to fall.

Ben felt around for a lighter very half-heartedly, like he already knew the answer, and then stuck the unlit cigarette between his dry lips. He seemed rather irritated.

Zach pulled one hand out of his pocket. Ben flinched.

"There, there," Zach said and raised it slowly toward him, palm up. It was an offering.

Ben went very still.

Zach patted him lightly on the shoulder, over the scarf. "There, there."

Ben had a line through his right eyebrow. It wasn't shaved in, like some of the guys liked to do. It was the shiny line of an old scar that was thinly etched from the hairline down to the fold of the eyelid.

He did that thing again, with the look that made the air condense around them. Little sparks of static danced down Zach's arms, jolting him. His hand flexed, and seized the scarf, pulling it toward himself.

There, there, he thought.

Ben gave no resistance. He appeared willing to fall in whichever direction Zach pulled.

Zach had a word of the day calendar on his desk at home. It was a Christmas present from an elderly aunt. He stopped flipping it in March. For the last nine months, he'd look up and see the same word every day. It stopped meaning anything to him anymore.

Until today.

Pliant, was the word.

It came to him in this moment all of a sudden, and he physically felt his lizard brain convulse.

They were close enough now that if Zach stuck out his tongue, he could lick him. So he stuck out his tongue. He liked the feel of Ben's lips on the tip of it. Ben let out a long, hot breath. Had he been holding it all this time?

Zach turned his head pressed their lips together. What did Ben eat this morning that was salty? Zach hauled him closer with the crook of his elbow at the back of his neck, and sought to find out. Ben moaned into his mouth, and in the middle, it turned into a hum. Zach lapped it all up. He couldn't get enough.

The leaning fence decided to give up at that moment, creaking, and they plummeted into the snow.

Zach knee went up, bare and bony and "Augh!" Ben groaned, collapsing. Big knobby hands folded over the front of his jeans. 

"Sorry. Sorry. Sorry!" Zach couldn't say it fast enough, and tried to untangle himself. He tried to twist out from underneath Ben's weight, overcorrected, and smacked his shoulder into Ben's jaw.

Ben's head went up. Bam. 

"Aah!" Zach yelped. "My fucking nose!" He clutched it, eyes watering.

He thought he heard Ben laugh. Zach squinted at him, through tears. The asshole.

Dark eyes blinked back at him, slowly, teasing. "Square?" he asked.


End file.
